


All You Need to Be

by Hikaru Yuy (hikaruyuy)



Series: Operation: Parenting [15]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Bittersweet, Fatherhood, Heero doesn't have good role models, Introspection, Multi, POV First Person, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25431025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaruyuy/pseuds/Hikaru%20Yuy
Summary: As a new parent, Heero is scared of ruining his daughter's life thanks to all of the demons from his past. Will she judge him for the things he did during the war? Is he the only one who can see the blood that continues to stain his hands? So many thoughts run through his head upon waking...
Relationships: Duo Maxwell/Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy
Series: Operation: Parenting [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1206309
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	All You Need to Be

**Author's Note:**

> I sat on this fic for longer than I should have but what is motivation? Heero is quite introspective in this one about how being a father makes him feel and how he never had good role models to rely on.
> 
> This fic alludes to abuse in Heero's past, specifically physical and verbal at the hands of an authority figure, and another authority figure who stood by and did nothing to stop it. Nothing more specific than that, but worth mentioning.

_ 16 January, AC 199 _

I awoke to the sun filtering through the blinds, my head at an awkward angle against the side of the changing table. Again. I’d lost count of how many times I’d woken up like this since Millie came home from hospital. Too afraid to let her leave my sight, that something bad would happen if she did. Afraid that in the middle of the night she would suddenly stop breathing, or that something bad would happen to the crib and crush her--these fears, I was told, were completely normal, though irrational, for a first time parent. That with each subsequent kid, things would get easier.

As I rose to my feet and rubbed at my eyes, my mind wandered. Here I was in my daughter’s nursery thinking, how did I end up here, at this point in my life, with a wife and a newborn daughter who was so perfect in every way? And how the hell did  _ I _ help create such a small, beautiful human being? I approached her crib and there she was, sleeping away. She had such light blonde hair, although Relena said it would likely darken, as hers had. Hair that was softer than silk and curled perfectly around a finger. Her tiny hands were clenched into fists, but I was able to loosen one enough for her to wrap her fingers around one of mine. Her grip was stronger than a vice and when Millie’s fingers first wrapped around mine and refused to let go, dread washed over me and I’d wondered if she’d gotten  _ those _ genetics.

Even though the geneticist said that that was impossible, that because I wasn’t born with those “enhancements,” I wouldn’t be able to pass them on. The super strength, the endurance, the ability to survive situations in which normal, unadulterated humans would die in--those genetics would die with me. All of this according to a doctor who held a degree stating she was an expert in genetics. Despite her expertise, she couldn’t tell me what exactly was done to me and how I was tampered with because she wasn’t the one who did any of the procedures. She could give me different theories, but I would have to talk to the one who did everything.

I wasn’t sure if Doctor J was even still alive--I wouldn’t put it past him to survive the war somehow. Even if he was still alive, I had no idea where he was currently located and didn’t really want to find out. There was no guarantee he would even tell me anything.

Her saying my children wouldn’t end up some genetic anomaly like myself didn’t assuage any feelings of doubt I had. If she wasn’t sure exactly what procedures were done, then how did she know I couldn’t pass something on? I was, after all, created in a lab for the sole purpose of killing hundreds of millions of people in the blink of an eye. When I looked at Millie, I shook my head at those thoughts. How could someone so precious and perfect end up becoming something like me? She was born into a family that loved her more than life itself, raised by a mother who hummed her lullabies and a father who would gladly die to protect her. Raised by a mother who would shower her with love and affection and a father who would gladly read her just one more bedtime story, even though it was two hours past her bedtime.

She wouldn’t know how it felt to be raised by a woman who did nothing but stand by as that  _ thing _ she married did and said the most awful things to the son she claimed to love so much. Millie wouldn’t know how it felt to watch the woman called ‘Mother’ barely shed any tears as the man who was “just a friend of the family” came and took her child out of that hellhole life. And she sure as hell would never know how it felt to be raised by a man who knew nothing but how to kill and how to survive.

Did I have doubts about my abilities as a father? Yeah. But at least I knew what  _ not _ to do so that Millie and any future siblings of hers wouldn’t go through the same shit that I did. My kids would never question whether or not I loved them.

Millie stirred, her big blue eyes focusing on me immediately as she yawned; her legs kicked and her breathing hitched as she prepared to let out her morning cry. I scooped her up into my arms as the tears rolled down reddened cheeks, soothing her as I took her over to the changing table. Relena poked her head into the nursery then, her long hair tied back in a loose plait that cascaded over her shoulder. I felt her gaze on me as I tossed the soiled diaper into the diaper genie and made sure the fresh one was pinned on correctly and without catching anyone’s skin.

“You’re a natural,” she said, as she picked Millie up for feeding time.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “It’s a combination of knowing what  _ not _ to do and reading a lot of r/Parenting.”

Relena headed over to the rocking chair tucked away into the corner and made herself comfortable on the ridiculously overstuffed seat cushion before letting Millie feed.

“Knowing what not to do is better than not knowing anything at all.” She gave me a soft smile. “So far I’d say you’re doing everything right.”

I took a seat on the ottoman that also served as an extra storage place, where Relena always kept a stash of baby wipes and burp rags.

“I’m trying my best,” I said, toying with my wedding band. “Nothing I was trained to do would help me in a situation like this.”

Relena laughed. “There’s no such thing as ‘parent training’.”

“They went over a whole bunch of things in your lamaze classes. ‘Not only should you be confident in giving birth, you should be confident in raising your child.’” Not to mention the Parenting 101 courses Relena’s obstetrician signed us up for that neither of us attended. 

Relena stroked the hair on Millie’s head as she fed.

“What’s on your mind, Heero?”

I shrugged. Did I really want to talk about my thoughts on fatherhood and how often I was scared completely shitless that I was going to end up screwing our daughter up? That I’d often watch her sleep until I ended up passing out from exhaustion, because I had this irrational fear that someone or something was going to take her from me as some kind of cosmic punishment for things I did during the war? For the kind of life I’d been taught to live?

Instead, I said, “I didn’t have a good childhood, Relena.”

“You’ve alluded to that, yes.”

“I didn’t meet the man who fathered me until I was six years old, and my mother’s husband was an asshole.”

Millie was done; Relena rested her on her chest and patted her back to help burp her.

“You’re afraid you’ll end up becoming like one of them?”

I sighed. “In many ways I already am.”

Killer. Anger issues with a side of inadequacy. Incredibly emotionally distant. Words without meaning and actions that didn’t match up. None of them knew how to handle emotions. None of them knew how to raise a kid.

“You’re not,” she said softly.

“You married a murderer, Relena.”

She flinched. Millie burped and cooed happily as Relena kissed the side of her head, her eyes not leaving mine.

“These hands that hold you every single night are stained with blood.”

“These hands that hold me and our daughter every night are gentle and warm.” Her voice was steady, firm, matter of fact. “Nothing in your past changes the fact that you are the kindest man I know.” She placed Millie in her bassinet before cleaning herself up.

My gaze fell to the floor. “You don’t know that for a fact.”

“I saw it with my own eyes when you wiped away my tears on the day I’d met you.”

The day that I’d ripped up her birthday invitation in an attempt to keep her away from me.

“Doctor J was the man responsible for you as a Gundam pilot. He told me himself you are a kind hearted boy.”

What would the man responsible for turning my life into something to be toyed with and used know about kindness when he was tasked with taking it away from me? 

Relena sat at the edge of the rocking chair and took my hands in hers.

“I’ve seen you with our daughter. You treat her so gently, like the slightest wrong movement will break her. You also don’t let her out of your sight, not for longer than a minute.”

I looked at the pale yellow bassinet with all the weird lace detailing Relena hated, and then looked to our clasped hands.

“She’s being held by a killer.”

Her hands squeezed mine. “She is not.”

“She is,” I insisted. “Just because the war is over, doesn’t mean that everything I did goes away. I have to live with it every single day.”

Relena’s eyes softened considerably. “You made a promise after the war was over that you wouldn’t kill again,” she murmured.

“And for the most part I’ve kept it.” Being a field agent made that promise difficult to keep but I tried my best.

“You don’t have to kill anymore. You don’t want to kill anymore.”

I sighed, my eyes going to the bassinet again. “I never did.”

Odin told me that I’d get used to it eventually. That it would stop hurting. And thought I got used to it, the feelings of guilt never left me. How could they? Maybe Relena was right, I was kind hearted, but that was seen as a weakness, a liability, a flaw; I wasn’t supposed to be proud of it. Yet here she was telling me to embrace it, that it was okay.

I got up from the ottoman and removed Millie from her bassinet. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and I gave her a kiss on her forehead before settling her in the crook of my arm.

“Who you are now and who you used to be are two different people,” Relena said. “You told Duo and I that you were throwing your past away and starting over.”

I scoffed a little. “It’s not as easy as I made it sound. I can’t just take all of my baggage and throw it into the trash.”

Relena had a look of contemplation on her face. “So who are you then, Heero? Are you Pilot 01?”

I shook my head.

“He’s dead.”

Millie latched onto my finger with her whole hand, pushing and pulling it. She grinned at how she could make my hand move.

“Then who is the man before me?”

Millie let out a giggle and I felt the hint of a smile as she tried to eat two of my fingers.

“Heero?”

Millie didn’t see the blood staining my hands. The only one who could was me.

“I’m her father, and your husband.”

I kissed Millie’s fist before I leaned over and kissed Relena.

“And that’s all you need to be,” she whispered.


End file.
